Audiences consume journalism increasingly online leaving swathes of digital traces to be analyzed through algorithms. Various forms of user data analysis have a direct and indirect bearing on journalism that is offered for the audiences.
Thus, it is fair to say that the relationship between journalism and audiences has become datafied. But how does datafication appear in the everyday production and reception of journalism, and what happens when members of the audience and journalists meet in face-to-face to discuss the issue?
This qualitative research project focuses on the Finnish tabloid newspaper, Iltalehti, and comprises of three empirical sub-studies.
- Firstly, an ethnography investigates how audience metrics are featured in the everyday newsroom practices at Iltalehti, and how this affects the ways in which audiences are imagined and served with news and views about the world.
- The second sub-study investigates how audiences perceive datafication as an additional – albeit not easily discernable – feature in their news diets and media environment.
- Lastly, a third sub-study brings journalists and audience participants to roundtable discussions on datafication and its impact on journalism.
The research question of the project is: What do journalists and audiences know of each other’s practices in the context of datafication?
Project group
Laura Ahva, Associate Professor, project leader
Heikki Heikkilä, Associate Professor, project leader
Pauliina Penttilä, Postdoc Researcher
Liisa Ovaska, Ph.D. Research Fellow
Funding
Partners
Iltalehti